Monthly Archive

I am very pleased to introduce you to my amazing husband, Craig. He asked if he could write a guest post here and I immediately said yes, because 1) He is amazing and has some really wonderful stuff to say, and 2) This blog needs some fresh press! Craig and I have been married for almost ten years and I couldn’t ask for a more perfect partner in life.

Recently, we have made a decision to move forward with something that has been a desire of ours for a while. We just didn’t know when we were going to begin. As with all of our life decisions, particularly major ones, we prayed. The prayer was pretty basic. “So…..when, God? Let us know. We’re sort of waiting for some sort of push”, whatever that meant.

But then on Sunday, as we were singing a particular song in church, suddenly, I felt this overwhelming calm wash over me. There was a physical sense of “impression” on my heart. Really. In sort of a spooky way. This doesn’t happen to me often, so when it does, I definitely take notice. As I stood singing, this feeling came over me and I just felt God saying, “It’s time. Now is the time. I’m all over it, so don’t worry about anything, but now is the time to move.” I couldn’t continue singing, I just stood there with tears streaming down my cheeks, and I whispered, “Okay”. So now I thought, “Hmmm, okay, now I have to let Craig know”. So as we sat back down in our seats, I made a mental note to make sure he and I had some time to talk.

But I didn’t have to tell him.

He leaned over and said, “It’s time. We need to do this.” Uh, okay. I literally had to stifle my sobs. Again, my life decisions don’t always happen in this crazy way. So when they do, I know I can just rest in the knowledge that we’re doing the right thing. Whatever happens.

SO, without much further ado, here is my schmoopsie poo:

When Caroline was younger she had a changing table in her bedroom. I’m not sure when it started, but she was quite young when it began; at some point in time I was able to coax her to jump off that changing table into my arms. I’m sure it was tentative at first, particularly because she was probably only a year and a half or so. But, as time went by she began to leap. I’m not talking about jumping off the side and doing a pin drop to my waiting hands, I’m talking about parallel to the ground, heels kicked way back, arms spread wide and travelling a good four to five feet from the table. Eventually, I had to lie on the ground to get far enough away from her to give her a good landing spot. From early on, she made these leaps with a giant smile on her face. There was joy in her heart and complete trust in her mind; there was no chance that she would not be caught. She asked me to let her jump almost every night until eventually the changing table was removed.

The memory of those times is vivid for me. The primary reason I love it is because of the joy I was able to bring my daughter. Secondarily, because of the trust she placed in me. I knew I would always catch her and I wanted her to trust me. As a child she should have trusted her daddy, but it would have been understandable if she had not, especially when the leaps were more dangerous.

This is all a metaphor. While it all actually happened between Caroline and me, I view it as a metaphor for our relationship with God. I’ve thought about it this way for a number of years, but it is something I am leaning on as Elizabeth and I take a leap of our own. I’m leaning on it because I believe God calls us to leap off of the safety of our own changing tables where our feet are secure and no danger exists. I think about God in this way since I know He can be trusted even though my – our – human nature is to not trust. My favorite part of this metaphor is thinking about the joy it brings to God when we jump. He fully intends to bring us joy in our leaping.

A big part of this picture of trust is that there is no getting around the fact that we should be “catching air”. Our trust in God will never grow without putting it to the test. The best news is that He will never fail that test. So, let’s start jumping! Jump with a smile on your face, ready for the experience that will occur. Elizabeth and I are taking a leap, smiles on our faces, heels back, arms wide, in complete free fall. It’s what God calls us to do. I wouldn’t want it any other way.